How does it feel to work with each other in the group? How does it feel? Well, it’s been a long kind of natural thing. It wasn’t a band that was contrived through a ad in the paper or something, it’s something of like a of a neighborhood jam. We would have a couple of beers or what ever and just have fun so, it’s always been a "bro thing" then a business thing, so that feeling is carried in what ever we do.

When you all decided to do this project, how was the response that would you get from your audience because of your wide musical backgrounds?
Hmmm...um, but we knew there was going to be a public response out there like cookie monster vocals and heavy "blah" all the time, but I wanted to do something that was totally different , to do something people would predict you know, cause there’s always time. I got a lot of heavy projects and stuff like that going on like Echobrain is just really beautiful, developed , something that was different, like talk to people and cheering up their minds, and maybe to get them to open up to not being so like tunnel vision about their music you know and not only the heavy stuff is good. There’s other good music that is powerful without being stupid distorted all the time, or just because it’s tuned down low doesn’t make it heavy, you know what I'm saying. It’s about power, you know it’s about how clean the music is, how pure it is and Echobrain has a lot of purity, so it has a lot of power.

Who actually sits down and writes all the lyrics? Is it a group thing?
Hmm...But, the first album was a group thing, but mostly Dylan is the main song writer in Echobrain. He comes up with like melody lines and then on this record all of us sat around in a room and put it together so you can imagine the real fun band thing and the silly ideas and something actually cool comes out of a silly idea and end up using that and everybody would agree on that and when you hit something and the room is, "Yeah that’s it!", you that kind of thing, and very much a team effort on the first record and on the newer record it's Dylan doing a lot of the lyrics all by himself.

On Chophouse Records and Surfdog Records, is there freedom or room to do whatever, when ever with the good size following and promotion you have , it really good for you?
Yeah, we do have it pretty much. Surfdog is just our mangers label, so Chophouse Records is the actual label that you know, it’s the name of the place where we make our music, but also the one, it is just a label of mine that , release all of my side projects, Echobrain being the one kind of, you know, the big foot forward, the best step forward, then everything else will follow up in the other projects.

Papa Wheelie is coming out?
That's right, and a bunch of other things too in the next couple of years.

During the recording, did you notice some songs couldn’t be done live like "Ghosts" because of the orchestration on the album and you had the vibe, and when it’s live it’s acoustic?

Hmm...We tried to create authorial feeling to all those kind of things, well that’s why we tried to add the other players to translate it a little more from the records. So it’s away from the power trio and, you know it’s just had to have three people.

So are they officially in the band?
Um...I couldn’t, wouldn’t say that yet, um they would do all the live shows that we’re playing, but as far as being like full members and writing credit, hasn’t been achieved yet. So it’s yet to be seen.

I noticed you had a bunch of people helping out on the record like Kirk Hammet.
For sure, but that’s how it’s always been at the Chophouse, we had a lot of people come and jam from different kinds of music, that’s what make Echobrain so different, so many different styles of players play on the album it’s really, it’s more like keeps you alive, makes you a more rounded player, it makes you excited to play. If you just decide to play the same things over and over again, you can learn from other styles and players it now listen to that kind of music, you play with there other people here it’s like wow, and it’s to cool and rubs off you a little just as well.

Vice versa when they all of a sudden they start seeing me do a down strokes all the time with the heavy stuff they’ll try to dig into it so, it’s a beautiful inspirational thing that’s what it forces to be, interaction of people in this day and age, a lot of that "stuff" like with this computerized, fabricated "bull" the human factor sucks in the art and the light gets sucked, that's very different for Echobrain, we know what win one fan at the time, you know take it to the people that kind of thing, nothing can replace that no matter how much computer stuff you get, nothing can replace jamming and interaction with humans, so were going to fight for that.

The media has been giving good reviews of your album and show’s, does this boost the confindence of the band?
Oh yeah, of course. You know just as if you were a human seeing reviews that say these guys suck and blow, they’re not worth anything, they make Dylan feel good and play better when you see something positive.

When people get it also they understand that we’re trying to cover more ground you know, were not Metallica, were not ever going to write under the old rules of Metallica you know , we’re not going to advertise like Metallica or any of that "bull". Were our own band you know, and I know it’s going to take the word of mouth to spread, but people have to realize that’s how it is and that Echobrain is its own thing, it’s own entity...

I only saw what, 50 or 60 people out there, but the vibe was just there
We always try to keep it real like a family vibe, just this togetherness thing its "Hey rock and roll, Woow!! How ya’ doing?! Rock and Roll!!", you know that kind of cool stuff like, "Ok...we’re here to together, you guy's want to hang out and have some fun? Cool, we’ll have fun no matter what you guy’s do anyway!", so (laughs) one of those togetherness things you know? Try to do that even when in Detroit were there was a thousand people out there, I still talked to them the same as if I would to a small crowd, "Glad you guys are here, we’re going to play these songs", and we started this one song over because we "messed" you know, its this kind of, people pay us to see our rehearsals (laughs).

Love the Sabbath stuff....
Yeah, when Dylan’s voice is on he can really do that stuff good. He was in this Sabbath cover band for a while once, yeah it was pretty crazy.

Is the band making a new album? I knew I heard new songs that I haven’t heard of.
Yeah, about 20 new songs that are real strong, that are all pretty much arranged with demo lyrics and um, the first record was completed about June of 2000. So it’s almost two years already, even though it’s been out for two months. All that "stuff" that went down with Metallica and everything kind of , some serious "hub bub" delayed getting it out later then we wanted to.

I saw you stole half the traveling cases with Metallica and Genisis written all over.
Yeah, that’s my stuff from Metallica you know what I mean?

How does it feel when you’re on tour? Does it feel any different for any of you?
It’s considerably different for me, I haven’t been on a bus with a band since 1989, so we flew from that time, so that’s pretty interesting so.

In the smaller clubs there’s a very different vibe then RFK Stadium.....
True, they have their good’s and bad’s both. You know, all their different set ups and what you can do, um...when you can see everyone’s eye’s, and see everyone’s reaction and how really attentive they are to the music this first time around and stuff that’s, I kind of like it. Because you can see that and check out the real reaction.

The feeling of the army out in front of you, thousands of people, and it’s louder then the P.A. System, that's a beautiful indestructible feeling you can’t deny that it’s incredible right? But, in people like really you get the feeling that they really appreciate what your doing in the smaller clubs like this because their catching all the notes and all the things that are nuances and things, so that’s the realness of that as oppose to like a big rock show were you here the radio singles and you know what I mean? It has to be presented a certain way as put up to in a stereo systems but it’s kind of the same way you heard it on the radio, the dude has to play the lead the same way all that kind of thing. It’s kind of, I don’t know, it can be cool if you know you get your head and have fun with it and everything, but it also has a shallowness to it you know what I mean? Are you playing what people are expecting you to play? It’s kind of weird and if you rock everyday different, like their not sure that we’ll play Sabbath tomorrow night or if I'm going to play a Zeppelin song instead, or where ever I'm going to go, maybe Hendrix, you never know. It might be something different with those guys and they’ll follow me where ever I go. So that kind of freedom like that is, I don’t care if there’s ten people it’s more valuable to have to do that. You know, and to have people around you like when your playing no matter what you do they go with you, it’s a pretty cool feeling. When your playing in Metallica or even bands like Slipknot or System Of A Down, or Biohazard who ever, any of those bands, you’ll listen and learn patterns on the neck and play it supper loud and you know you’ll start together, and stop together, chorus together, oh.. You know that all you don’t really ever listen to the other guys are playing, your playing so loud that your thinking about playing your patterns in the right place and memorization, conditioning thing.

Different then a true counter pointer playing when you hear what that guy is playing and react to it like, "dudula, dudulad, dudula, dudulad", you know that kind of thing. That doesn’t really exist when the music is just, "Thud, Thud, Thud", all the time so there’s a really big difference in that too. It feel’s better when you able to hear everybody and be able react and you do what your brain tells you, that’s kind of a cool thing to do too. Works out good...

I saw online there is a German website for you band...
That’s cool...

So are you going to tour Europe maybe? Japan?
Hmm.....Yeah we turned down some European dates, um but we are going to do a couple of Japanese festivals in August. We will go to Europe eventually too, but it has to be more on our terms. Their was this other thing we were offered had festivals and kind of in-between little clubs, I just didn’t feel good about logistics and stuff.

I think it’s so different, it’s going to be a lot different out there then it was when I was accustomed to when we toured with Metallica before all this stuff down with terrorism and all this, it will be different to tour the world and ...and that's something to consider. Doing it our own way is kind of a head ladder, and presenting that way is how we want to do it as a we keep playing is our plan.

Ultimately, I would say my motto is still the same as it always was in Metallica you know, where ever people want to here our music, we will take it. Where ever they will except the westernized rock and roll music we want to take it there it’s just a matter of time.