Next In Line - Interview
1. Tell me about the history and evolution of Next In Line.
Next In Line was bred from birth to produce Rock and Roll music, you could call us slaves. Our evil, hippy parents conspired before we were born to assemble a human factory of riffing, double kicks, melodies, and perfectly placed vocal screams and harmonies. They fed us only Tofurky and Rock Star
energy drink (ugck) until we could walk.... haha.. yah.. Totally kidding about all that. We are just friends playing music together, and we've found that the better songs we write the more fun we have. It's all about having fun.
2. How did you hook up with Indie Vision Music?
They were selling our old CD that we recorded back in '99 called In due time. Brandon from Indie Vision was putting together a compilation CD for Tooth and Nail and he asked us to submit a song for it. I guess he like the new stuff we were doing because he wanted to put out Traffic for us.
3. What are some funny performance stories? (maybe a star story, funny mishap, or both)
I can think of quite a few... but the one that sticks out is by far the most bizarre. A few years ago we had a gig somewhere in Northern California, I won't say where exactly, but you can be sure that it was nowhere near the coast. It was a decent show for the time, about 50-100 people in attendance. Now, the strange thing about it was a group of about 10 guys (I'm assuming locals) carrying squeegees, you know the kind you find at gas stations to clean your windows with. They would keep these things raised above their heads for the duration of the concert. We were a bit freaked out by this. It was like some twilight zone episode where they might squeegee our faces off if they didn't like what we were playing. We made sure to play extra good that night. On top of that, the stage at this show was assembled out of big black wooden boxes. It appeared to be solid and built well, but upon stepping onto these black boxes we quickly noticed that person who built them thought it would be a good idea to put wheels on the bottom! So, besides feeling uneasy about the "squeegee gang" the stage was sliding apart leaving us jumping across the crevices from one floating square to the next. Haha, well I have more stories.. but I guess I'll save them for the next interview.
4. What excites you about music today? What bores you?
Originality. Ok, originality can be bad if taken to the extremes with bad taste, but I really like new sounds and ideas in familiar types of music. Or just the opposite of that- old or familiar sounds used in new/modern music. Like using Jazz/Blues style melodies or progressions in Rock music.. now that is rad. As far as the sound of recordings, take the new Metallica cd for example. I hated it at first... it sounded weak, like it was recorded in a trash can. I thought to myself, "Hey, this isn't Metallica.. Where is the huge kick and snare? and the perfect, thick guitars? no guitar solos??!!" But now I actually like it and can appreciate the change they made with that record. I also get excited about new technology being used to create music. I work closely with audio companies developing new recording gear and I'm convinced that the possibilities for creating original music is only growing. Although all that being said, nothing can beat really good song writing. What bores me about music today? Well, non originality. I've heard so many great bands lately that are super talented and have great songs but I just can't get excited about it because it's nothing really new or refreshing.
5. What do you hope to bring to the scene you're part of that's uniquely you?
Well, I'm going to keep writing songs with my humor and my experiences. First of all, I want to make music that excites me, if it happens to excite other people then that's cool. It only inspires me to keep writing. I'm pretty picky in my musical preferences so it's always a challenge (a welcome challenge) for me to keep writing songs that keep me interested.
6. Anything you've always wanted to be asked in an interview?
HM- So, what is it like dating Charlize Theron?
AC- Well doug... I prefer to keep my private life out of the spotlight. But hey... aside from our busy schedules it's not bad.
7. Anything else you'd like to add?
Thanks Doug and HM for the interest in NIL! Um, thanks to everyone who reads this... take care!
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