memento



JUSTIN STEWART COTTA of MEMENTO

OZZFEST, HOLMDEL, NJ
8.18.03

Justin Stewart Cotta reminds me of Ian Anderson.

Minus the flute and the funny, stand-on-one-foot thing.

And the ratty hair.


Offstage you couldn’t meet a more genial interviewee. Onstage, the guy oozes a pseudo-psycho charisma that’s less about having to watch him than it is a fear of looking away and missing something. He’s a natural and honest performer and one of several front men on the tour who seem to undergo a transformation when they grab the mic (add Twisted Method’s Tripp and Endo’s Gil to that list).

It’s a hot summer afternoon and we hit the air-conditioned comfort of Memento’s bus for what would turn out to be one of my favorite interview sessions to date.

Turns out the guy’s as captivating on the bus as he is on the stage.



Justin Stewart Cotta Justin: Do you want a drink, mate? A beer or a soft drink?


 Show & Tell: A water would be killer, thanks.

 J: Water? Yeah, sure. It’s not exactly cold, but…


 S&T: Compared to what’s going on outside, it is. Warm water would be refreshing. Whew, man. Is this what it’s like back home [in Australia]?

 J: It’s hotter than this. In summer it gets to, like, 110 degrees.


 S&T: 110? Really? Now is that like an Arizona 110, where it’s not humid? Or like a Jersey 110?

 J: No, it’s like 110 and humid. Yeah, it’s brutal. It’s brutal.


 S&T: So this is like a walk in the park?

 J: It’s not a walk in the park ‘cause (I’m acclimated to the weather in the US) ‘cause I’ve been here three or four years now. But if I had just landed off the plane, it would be not too bad at all.


S&T: I got the CD way back in November or December (and it came with a pretty small) press kit – it was like a bio and one sheet. Then, two months later, they sent me an updated press kit and it was like massive…

 J: Really? I haven’t seen that one!


 S&T: Massive. It seemed like all of a sudden people were writing about you.

 J: It’s coming together slowly but surely.


 S&T: Can you give me a timeline, like from when you and Steve [Clark, Memento’s drummer] left [previous band VAST], you went back home and played there for how long, wrote music, and then came here?

J: Well actually, I never went back to Australia. The long and short of it kind of even a little before that was me coming to America initially, mainly out of boredom. I was cleaning ashtrays at a bar, doing a bit of theatre here and there. I’ve always been in bands, that’s a given, so the band thing was always happening as that goes. And I heard there was an audition for VAST through a mutual friend, um, came over and auditioned for that band…


 S&T: That’s how you came over?

 J: Yeah, I came to audition for the guitar spot, just as an excuse to get away from doing nothing, really. And it sounded really exciting and I loved the first VAST album, so I was like, “Wow, that’s weird. It’s like one of my favorite bands, I love that album, they need a guitar player and I can kind of play guitar. What the hell? Worst case scenario, it’s two weeks holiday, all good, with no regrets.” You know? That was the main thing. It was like, if I don’t do this, am I going to be kicking myself for the rest of my life?

So I went, and the coolest thing about the audition was meeting Steve on drums. And a half-hour audition turned into like a three-hour jam. There was a piano set up, and vocal mics set up, it was just like a free-for-all jam, basically. And I knew instantly that him and I had a great rapport, something special going on. He’s a really good listener and we were bouncing off each other real well in that situation.

Justin Stewart Cotta So if you cut to a year and a half from then and about 120 shows with VAST, Steve and I got on famously on the bus, there was no drama, just like really, really close. He was like my best U.S. friend by far, basically. So that friendship kind of blossomed, which isn’t really a band kind of feel. We were kind of desperate for that “brotherhood” kind of thing with the other two band members as well. And we kind of had that with Thomas [Froggatt], which was great, but there was a bit of distance between the other band members and Jon [Crosby, the group’s founder], and that’s no disrespect, it’s just reality.

He’s very, very functional on his own and very capable on his own, and he didn’t need to collaborate, really, for what he wanted to do. He had it pretty much mapped out, and I didn’t like the idea of staying on as an employee.


 S&T: Right. It was his vision instead of “our” vision?

 J: Yeah. And not so much that there was a conflict, it’s just that I’ve never wanted to be in a band as a hired gun, and that’s what it started to feel like. Um, so we just got out to do our own band. Like a “band” band, with everyone being bro’s and hanging out and equal input. So as soon as we decided to do that, I encouraged Steve to trust me on the fact that I knew the guitar player, Space. And Space likewise asked me to trust him on the bass player, who I actually knew from Australia and we’d met and hung out a bit here and there, we’d seen each other’s bands, but I’d never really played with Lats [a.k.a. Leighton Kearns]. But Space had for three years, and Space and I had played together off and on for like eight years, so kind of by default all these long relationships were taking place between different band members – musically speaking, of course. So yeah, done. Got the line-up, slept on the rehearsal room floor and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.


 S&T: Was that here?

 J: In L.A., yeah. When Steve and I quit [VAST], we retreated back to L.A. and two days after the VAST tour finished, the two Aussies [i.e., Space and Lats] landed and we started rehearsals that day in L.A. I’ve seen a couple of different bios and some say that we went back to Australia, when really we went back to people we knew, but they came over here. So to clear that up, it was definitely L.A. We landed in L.A. back from tour, two days later the guys landed in L.A. and we started in L.A.


 S&T: That was when?

 J: That was…hmm…2001. April first.


S&T: April Fool’s Day.

 J: Yeah, it’s weird. It sounds silly and sounds fabricated, but that’s the date. Which is weird because their plane was landing that day and I’m a bit superstitious, so I had to tell myself, “Oh come on, everything’s gonna be fine, it’s cool, the plane’s gonna be fine. All good.”


 S&T: And what happens when they get to the room? I mean, is it instant?

 J: Um, it was a couple of hours of talking and a few beers. And the jetlag actually encouraged having a jam, because the boys were like, “No, I’m fine, I’m fine!” And I knew from experience that eight hours later they were gonna be dead meat, but I was like, “OK, you want to jam, let’s jam! I love it, let’s do it!” And then sure enough, we had a great jam but towards the end of it, their eyes started rolling towards the back of their heads.


 S&T: And that’s what, that’s 24 hours later?

 J: Well, it’s a 14 hour flight, but you take two hours on either end for customs and yeah, it’s pretty close to a full day of traveling. It’s a mindfuck. So yeah, we started from there, just writing. There were a couple of ideas Steve and I already had, one of them was “Nothing Sacred” in its infancy, and a few others. We played around L.A. a lot, Viper Room, Dragonfly, what have you. But lots of thanks to the Viper Room, who let us play more often than we probably should have. It was probably overkill, but they let us keep playing.


S&T: How long is it between the time the guys arrive from Australia to the incident with the heckler and the police?

 J: That’s…hmmm…March last year is when we got signed. 2002.


 S&T: So almost a full year?

 J: Yeah.


S&T: Okay, you get signed, you’re still in L.A. and you’re working on the album…

 J: Exactly.


Justin Stewart Cotta S&T: …and the album comes out?

 J: February 25th the album came out. So we got signed in March of 2002 and recorded the album in July and August of 2002 with [long-time Alice in Chains producer] Toby Wright.


 S&T: Now, I know you’re an Alice in Chains fan, and actually Steven too?

 J: Yeah, and so is Space. Big time.


S&T: And how'd you hook up with Toby Wright?

 J: We were blown away. Actually, it was because of the relationship between Alice [in Chains] and Columbia [Records] and Toby – that link of the chain. Noone can promise someone will like something, but what they could promise us was three or four producers who they thought were appropriate that they could at least get the demo CD to and make sure they at least listen to it once. And Toby was just what I call the first responder. Like, a half-hour after first hearing the demo, he called back. And the next day after he received the package, he was in our studio listening to us jam live in the rehearsal room. And he was passionate, he was laughing during the jam, just going “Yeah!” and pumping his fist and gritting his teeth. He was just so visceral and into it that it was like, “Eh, you know what, the man’s already here. We’ve got our boy and he’s sitting five feet away from us listening to us jam one day after he got the demo!”


S&T: Kind of like an audition…

 J: Yeah. He actually started working right at that first meeting, going like, “Right, could you…. OK, this is happening, maybe if we just….”


 S&T: Were you able to maintain your cool?

 J: We just put on our best acting face like we were fine with it, but deep down, were like, “No way!” I know [Alice in Chains’] “Jar of Flies” is just an EP, but man, that is just one of the best things I’ve ever heard in my life. So to know that he’d done “Jar of Flies” and the self-titled Alice in Chains album and all the acoustic stuff….


 S&T: Actually, he’s a really good fit for your sound.

 J: He knows how to kick in teeth, but at the same time he knows how to be really subtle.


 S&T: The production on your album is really good. When you guys were making it, did you worry about you were going to play it live, with the strings and all?

 J: We basically just jumped in the deep end. I’ve always believed there’s two aspects to a band – studio and live - and I kind of feel like they’re separate entities. Having said that, I also want to say I love when a band is, not the same as on record, but as good as on record. And I think it’s a little bit different.

U2 is a band that springs to mind, who throughout the years from “Boy” to “October” to “War” “Unforgettable Fire,” for example, they started with a lot of strings and over-dubbing and texturing and this and that and keyboards. And I went and saw them live wondering how the hell they going to pull that off, like were [producers] Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois gonna come on stage? What was the deal? But they just played, the four of them, and just the emotion – the Edge particularly, which is who I’d relate to Space as far as he covers a lot of, not necessarily the notes or exact progressions of the strings, but the emotion that’s in those sections, he covers on guitar live.

And you also have the added element of being able to jam, be it vocally or on guitar, to hit that same peak - minus eleven dudes on their cellos and violins and violas – but you still achieve that same emotional peak without it. Even when the time comes, if we’re lucky enough, to have a one-off where it’s like, “You guys have a show you’ve gotta do and it’s on TV and we’re gonna get you a string section,” then we’d be like, “Yeah!” That would be a new level. It wouldn’t be better or worse, it’d just be what it is. So not to sound corny, but to me it’s the emotion of that section of the song with the strings, and you just have to achieve that emotion without it.


 S&T: Lyrically, is it all you?

 J: Yeah, the lyrics are.


 S&T: It’s strong, strong stuff.

 J: Thank you.


 S&T: Is it cathartic writing it? Or how about this – is it as cathartic singing it as it is writing it? Because you can read it and figure out that you’re working through something. That’s pretty clear. [laughs]

Justin Stewart Cotta J: Yeah. I think it’s more cathartic performing it. And funnily enough, “Figure 8” is about that feeling that you do get sometimes in trying to push through certain issues or problems, and in an effort to push through it constructively, the irony is that you actually have to go back and visit to deal with it. And that process was cathartic, definitely, but the weight is taken off the shoulders emotionally more at the shows than in the studio. Because in the studio it’s just one big emotional mess, you know?


 S&T: Right, you’ve got a whole bunch of other shit weighing down on you.

 J: Yeah. And you worrying about not just how you’re feeling, but was the take good enough, certain expectations from the producer and your band members about the quality of the take, and then it kind of combines to be one big mess. So that was actually really difficult and I found it even harder being my first album and inexperienced and a complete rookie. It got a bit overwhelming.


 S&T: I don’t do anything musically, but I paint and I write and I’m always amazed when I hear a song that obviously has a lot of pain involved with it and the singer makes a decision to sort of revisit that on an almost daily basis. Like, the one that strikes me the most is Otep – are you familiar with them?

 J: Right, yeah.


S&T: She does a song “Jonestown Tea,” which is basically about a girl being raped by her father, and she has to revisit that pain every night. Is there a certain amount of sadomasochism to that?

 J: There could be that. For certain performers, it probably is. But for me personally, it’s so much more shared, because even if it’s a tiny club, you’re still sharing it. At Ozzfest, there’s a lot of people there to help absorb it. And it actually feels more communal and a bit like sharing it. It doesn’t become advice, because that’s arrogant, but it definitely becomes, like, relatable and there’s people who come up afterwards and are like, “’Blister’ really helped me with this” or whatever.


 S&T: Can you feel it when you’re singing? Can you feel, like, “Wow, they’re here with me” or “Whoops, they’re not with me?”

 J: Absolutely. I mean, some crowds are split and you can tell where there’s love and where there’s not for the band or the lyric you’re singing, and in that instant you just focus on the positive and make eye contact with the people that matter to you. When it’s unanimous and you have those lucky shows where everyone’s the zone – every band has those shows, maybe it’s once a week or twice a week or once a month, whatever it is, that show where it’s just magic – it’s like Tiger Woods playing out of his mind and shooting 15 under. When you’re in that zone, it’s just like one big organism is pulsating and it’s completely shared. It takes a lot of responsibility off me, actually. It takes a lot of the weight off me, because it’s almost like people are holding me up.


 S&T: Does it ever get exhausting?

 J: It’s more exhausting physically than emotionally. I’m really finding it totally constructive out there singing. I expected it to be much more negative and much more like, “Man, I can’t do this every day,” but it’s turned into something really cool.


 S&T: Rumors have you guys moving quite a few Cds on the tour, did you expect that?

 J: No way. We had quite the opposite expectation. We actually - between you, me and everybody reading this – we expected to get butchered. With songs like “Beginnings,” which is essentially a ballad – it’s a stupid word, but it’s a ballad, it’s a mellow, slow acoustic-driven song – we knew we were going to play it. So that element of our personality may have been slightly sadomasochistic, in the sense that we’re opening the door for getting booed. But the funny thing is that people actually liked the song.

So I think from that our confidence just grew and we realized that we could totally be ourselves on the Ozzfest tour. We didn’t have to make anything heavier, we didn’t have to make anything darker, we didn’t have to dress differently to win a crowd over. And we wouldn’t have done that anyway. We either would’ve done two weeks and gotten kicked off the tour because people hated our guts, or people would like us for who we are.


S&T: I find that especially on the second stage, musicians seem to underestimate the crowd, particularly bands that aren’t quite as heavy. You know, you’re not Killswitch [Engage], you’re not Chimaira, you’re not any of these, and you wonder if since the second stage is predominantly those heavier bands, is that what the kids are coming to see? But then you get a band like you, or like last year it was Neurotica, and you think, “What the hell is Neurotica doing here?” But they loved them. So the kids love their aggression and they love their hardcore stuff, but they’re savvy, they know what a good song is.

 J: Yeah, it’s a coup d’etat almost, it’s like a complete surprise attack. I’m finding that people are looking forward to – not a break, because that would be underestimating our own abilities – but it’s definitely a change. And you can’t help it. If there’s four apples and an orange, the orange is definitely gonna stand out, you know what I mean? So it actually helps us that there’s so many great heavy bands on this bill. It helps us stand out. Not better, not worse, just we’re obviously different and whether people like the band or don’t like the band, their ears adjust and their eyes adjust and they go, “Whoa, hell, what’s going on?” And that’s all you want initially, that first little crick of curiosity where they’re looking around, and then you pull them in by delivering. It’s one thing to be different, but if you’re different and you don’t deliver, you’re dead meat on that stage. And there’s been one show where we didn’t deliver, we didn’t hit 100%, we hit like 80% or maybe 75% and it was like, “We can never do that again.”


Justin Stewart Cotta S&T: When did you know?

 J: I know by the end of the first song. There’s been times at the end of the first song where it’s a 50-50 kind of vibe, the audience is still judging and the jury’s still out, but most of the time. And that’s why we open with “Coming” and we do our thing.


 S&T: Here your sets obviously shorter.

 J: Yeah, it’s 20 minutes.


 S&T: So how do you adjust it? Do you play the same set every stop?

 J: We mix it up a little bit. We did “Bodies” by Drowning Pool the last couple of shows. We had Dave Draiman [of Disturbed] come up and sing “Shell” with us in Cleveland. We’ve kind of found a rhythm now with the set that we really like, that we’re pretty much sticking to now. You don’t want it too top-heavy or bottom-heavy, so we’ve got a selection of five songs.

S&T: You kind of did some experimenting?

 J: Yeah, and we’ve definitely found a groove that works for this tour.


S&T: Now, you had a few dates scheduled with Nothingface and they just dropped off this tour.

 J: Yeah, which is a shame.


 S&T: Are you guys keeping any of those shows?

 J: There was only one left and we’ll probably do that one anyway.


 S&T: What show was that?

 J: Louisville, Kentucky.


 S&T: Ozzfest is kind of a weird tour, because you always have a day off between shows, right?

 J: Yeah, but the first six weeks of the tour was pretty jammed with off-dates. But yeah, we’ve had good opportunities with the days off.


 S&T: What do you do?

 J: I play golf.


 S&T: The whole band?

 J: Nah, just me and Steve. Steve’s really good, I’m a beginner. And I love the sport, it’s just the complete opposite of what we do out here. Anger and tension do not work with a golf club. It’s all about chilling out and relaxing.


 S&T: Emotionless?

 J: Not necessarily emotionless. Just negative or aggressive emotion kills your score, so it’s good for me. I like it.


 S&T: Therapeutic.

 J: Yeah, it really is.


S&T: Just to wrap up on Ozzfest, what kind of changes have you seen since the beginning of the tour?

J: Um, I’ve noticed that before we used to think we were confident, but now we are confident. We used to get all pumped up before a set and get in the huddle and go, “Alright men, we’re gonna go out there!” And now it’s like, “I’ll see you onstage in five minutes.” That’s all that needs to be said, a little handshake and we’re mostly really calm. It’s no less intense on stage, we’re just relaxed. Relaxed and confident. I think it’s playing that many times in front of a very tough audience and winning them over consistently has given us a new level of relaxation and confidence.


 S&T: Is that what it feels like? Does it feel like you’re winning them over?

 J: It’s more of a numbers thing, actually. I know for a fact every time there’s people down the front who know every lyric who are obviously Memento fans, but it’s nice for that energy to ripple back to halfway and then right to the back and then to see the whole crowd really appreciate what you’re doing. It’s fantastic. And we’ve had dudes come up at the end of a set saying, “Guys, I never heard of you before, but halfway through your set you won me over.” And it’s like, thank you very much.


 S&T: I liked the album when I got it, but when we saw you live, where do you go? I mean, you go somewhere else because there’s a transformation and then you’re something else, and then the set’s over and you’re right back.

Justin Stewart Cotta J: Yeah, I think a lot of that is nervous energy that turns into…I mean, I get scared before going on stage. Not to contradict what I just said about being relaxed, but I don’t care whether it’s sport or music or whatever – like if you were going to be interviewing Elvis! – you get performance anxiety, man, you’re gonna get scared shitless. And for me a lot of that nervous energy and doubt and fear and nervous energy that almost paralyzes my body, it has a proposition made to it. And that proposition is you either walk off stage and quit and do something different, or you walk on stage and do it right. And at that moment, the energy goes, “Well, let’s quit.” But then your soul and your heart and your brain go, “Fuck you, we’re going out on stage” and the energy goes, “Oh well, the boss just told us we’re going out there. So come on guys, come on all you little nerves, we’re going on stage, are you ready?” And then it’s kind of like tunnel vision, you only see what you’re looking at, there’s no peripheral and you just go for it.


 S&T: Do you have like a pre-show ritual?

 J: No, not any more.


 S&T: Did you use to?

 J: Yeah, breathing and stretching and stuff like that, but I found that made me think even more. It was like warming up for the show made me think about the show even more, so I do less before a show now and I try to leave it until the last minute, I walk around in my boxer shorts or whatever until a half-hour before a show and then I’ll put some shoes on, have a cigarette, try to distract myself from thinking about it. At the end of the day, all your doing is going out and playing a rock show, but inside it can feel like World War III.


 S&T: How about when it’s over?

 J: Completely right now, just totally stoked and relaxed and calm. And the rest of the day I’ll feel like this. Before the show, edgy.


 S&T: Is it when the last song’s over? As soon as you get off stage? When you get back on the bus?

 J: As soon as that last song is…when the last bit of vocal comes out of your throat – done. Finished. Game over. Everything’s beautiful, everything’s serene, everything’s good. Unless you’ve had a bad show, then you just get mad at yourself. But 9 times out of 10 it’s a good show.


 S&T: Now is there any difference with the rotating show times at Ozzfest?

 J: I like the morning because you get the day to relax. If you’re on at 3pm, you’re up at 10am and you spend the whole day going, “Well, I might go check out Killswitch [Engage] or go over to the booth and do some signings or maybe watch some TV.” You’re thinking about the show. And it would be a different answer if the second stage in the morning was empty, but it never is. It doesn’t matter what time you go on, you always get a good audience to play to. So it’s six of one, half-dozen of the other, as far as that goes.


 S&T: Plus, I would imagine that at the beginning of the day the kids are fresh.

 J: They totally are.


 S&T: But then at the end of the day they’re hot, been standing out there all day sweating…

 J: One of the best shows I remember that we did was 9:30 in the morning in St. Louis. We were the first band of the day. One of the best shows we’ve ever done, and I think for that reason. The kids that are at that stage at that time of the morning are dedicated to music. They’re dedicated to seeing live bands. And just with the appreciation we got from the audience for going on first, it was a great show. They sometimes expect the first band to come straight out of bed and be tired or flat, but I had a big cup of coffee and some cigarettes and I was amped. So I think they were actually caught off-guard, like, “Hang on, the first band wasn’t meant to come out at 9:30 in the morning and be good! They’re just meant to be a warm-up.” But we came out and were good, so that was a good feeling.


 S&T: And the tour wraps up after a couple more dates?

 J: Yeah, the 28th in Florida is the last date.


 S&T: Where do you go from there?

 J: Two weeks off, um, shoot a video for “Saviour,” which will be the next single and um, write some music.


 S&T: Is there a treatment for the video yet?

 J: Not yet. We have interest from a guy who I can’t say yet, ‘cause I don’t want to curse it. But as soon as it’s official I’ll make sure to let you know. It’s someone good whose work we love and if it happened we’d be thrilled, but it’s not at that stage yet where we can say yes or no.


 S&T: I know you’re superstitious. And writing new music?

 J: Not so much for anytime soon, but just to avoid that sophomore jinx and not be caught off guard. You never know with how fickle this industry is. We could get a call tomorrow, dude, either saying, “You’re done” or “You’re not done but you’re going into the studio to make a second album because we’ve lost the vibe.” I mean, that’s happened to two or three bands on this bill already. So you’ve just got to stay on top of that. If and when the time comes to do a second album, you’d best be prepared. You don’t want to be jamming out your second album in four weeks.


 S&T: How much new stuff do you have so far?

 J: We’re at five songs. And when I say five, it’s actually more like fifteen, but we’re being really strict. We have five definites, so that’s good. That’s nearly half an album, which is a great place to be.


 S&T: What’s the progression from your first album to this new music?

 J: Same as the progression in the live thing. It’s a little more relaxed, less intense, and we’re not afraid to… The first album’s fairly crisp in a lot of ways, and this is feeling a little more murky, a little more bleed-over. Not that the first album is polarized, but definitely up-front in the mix, the production, lyrically. This is going to be a little more murky, dirtier.


S&T: Will you request Toby again?

 J: He’s definitely someone we’ll be talking to. He’s obviously someone we’d want to work with again, but again you never know. He’s got to want to do it too.

interview by scott sisti