TuneLab: Revelation Theory
has toured almost non-stop throughout 2006.
What are some of the best and worst parts
of being on the road for extended periods
of time?
Julien Jorgensen: Well, obviously the
best part is you get to play with some of
your favorite bands and play live because
we love to do that. And worst part, I guess
being away from your family, which kind of
sucks-not having a home, having to sleep in
a bunk, and you know driving 14 hours every
night it's those types of things that gets
you a little bit.
Matty McCloskey: Definitely being off
the road gets you. You start to get antsy.
You're like 'What am I doing here? I need
to get back out.' A week at home and you're
ready to go again.
Rich Luzzi: It's a catch 22. You hate
being on the road for a long time but once
you get off, you're ready to get back out.
TL: I remember seeing you guys on one of your
first tours in August 2005 opening for Five
Bolt Main and playing to about 50 people.
Now the band is landing huge spots on national
tours. How have you all handled the rapid
gain in notoriety?
JJ: Rapid gain? Ha, well that makes
you feel like last year was worth it. But
it's amazing, you know. We've been hustling
for a year or so working hard and looking
at everything we've accomplished is pretty
amazing.
RL: It's weird because the Five Bolt Main
days feel like yesterday. It's really not
hard to cope or deal with anything. It's not
like we walk into stores and get recognized
or anything, but you know it's cool. We've
been recognized in restaurants in cities that
we've played. It's fun-it's more or less feeling
the accomplishment in that the music is getting
out there and people are recognizing you and
knowing that all the hard work you're putting
in is paying off.
MM: We can really appreciate these tours
so much and we were talking about it earlier
today. It's like most bands get on big tours
because they buy on or their label has a connection
but we earned all the tours we got. You know,
we started hustling with Five Bolt and Adema,
bands like that so we could work to earn our
tours with bands like Crossfade, Evanescence,
Sevendust. And Sevendust was actually one
of the first bands to bring us in and embrace
us and let us go on the road with them so
we're really appreciative of them and all
they've done for us.
TL: Where did the concept for the Revelation
Theory angel originate and how many fans have
you seen with it inked?
JJ: Oh man, well it came from Richie.
He has a couple of tattoos already and when
we were living on Long Island he got a couple
angel tattoos on his back and on his arms
and we thought it was cool and it matched
the name, and the music and fit the image
and made sense as far as what we wanted to
portray so it's cool.
RL: A lot of people got it tattooed, a
lot, a lot of people. They sent me pictures
but I don't know how many but we've actually
gone with people to get it tattooed so it's
pretty cool. We all have it.
All: We all have it.
JJ: But yeah, it's pretty cool.
TL: Revelation Theory has earned an esteemed
reputation as extremely hard working and extremely
dedicated to your fans. What keeps the band
motivated to help yourselves on such a grassroots
level?
JJ: I think we're all just hardworking
guys in general and we haven't had anything
really given to us and you know like Matty
was saying we've hustled and a lot of the
bands we've played with we've seen them been
given the golden spoon, the golden treatment
and it's almost like they haven't deserved
it or their art deserved it. But when we see
like relationships and working hard actually
warrants deserving it, we pride ourselves
on that.
RL: Some bands we've grown up loving,
like Sevendust. They're one of the most hard
working touring bands we've seen, and early
on when we first started we kind of modeled
ourselves after them because they can go into
a town and not have any radio support and
still pull 2500 kids into a room which is
important, because at the end of the day this
can all fall and this can all be taken out
from underneath you, but if you build a credible
fan base and you work your ass off and you
connect with people on a personal level, then
that's always gonna be important. You know
there's bands like 311 who've had great, great,
great success off of touring and just working
really hard. So you know it comes from that-
just knowing that if one day everything was
to fail that we could still get in a van and
travel across the country and have fans and
people there.
TL: The Girls Gone Wild tour with Hinder and
Faktion must have been a pretty intense tour.
Any wild stories from those shows?
JJ: Too many.
RL: Every show, every night. Every single
night was a different party or a different
story.
JJ: Those guys [Hinder] are the real deal
as far as parties go.
TL: I think they're sponsored by like 5 different
alcohol companies.
RL: The big one is Jose Cuervo.
JJ: Yeah they gave us a big bottle once
but we were afraid to drink it.
MM: We thought it could be a prank, like
we thought they pissed in it or something
so it's unopened still.
RL: No it broke, because it fell off the
counter and busted. But the tour was crazy.
It was before our single was really getting
to radio and it was before their single was
really getting to radio so it put us in front
of a lot of people every single night. And
a lot of people thought that it was this big
Girls Gone Wild event but what it came down
to was they were just sponsoring it. It was
definitely about the music, but it definitely
drew a different type of crew to the shows.
It was definitely crazy.
JJ: It was our first chance to play to
those type of crowds and Hinder's got a little
different of a draw than we do. We have a
harder rocking crowd and they have, you know.
RL: Females.
All: Females [laughs]
MM: It was awesome to party with those
guys.
RL: Those guys are like the jackasses
of rock music. They just do stupid crazy shit.
MM: Especially Blower.
TL: Yeah I've seen videos of him doing crazy
shit, like lighting his nuts on fire.
RL: You want one specific event since
I know we haven't really given you anything?
I won't name any names but I'll just say on
one particular night, a girl was coerced into
giving one of the members of the band a blowjob
while the other guys were in the room, and
one of them was playing guitar and the rhythm
of the guitar-when it would speed up, she'd
speed up, and when it would slow down, she'd
slow down. But that's just one [laughs].
TL: 'Truth is Currency' was released
through Idol Roc Records. Were you guys approached
with any other offers, and if so, what prompted
your decision to sign with Idol Roc?
All: Uh, no [laughs]
RL: Idol Roc Entertainment-that's our
management company and they pretty much became
our production company, and they teamed up
with Century Media Records and formed another
label, Element One, which is a purely independent
side which had nothing to do with Century
Media. So it was a brand new label with no
staff and they had a bit of help from EMI
because that's who distributes them. And at
the time we had taken ourselves to a bunch
of different people and a bunch of people
passed on it, but our management believed
in us and we found a couple other people that
believed in us and we just said 'we're just
gonna do it ourselves'. And we're happy that
we did because it put us in a great position
today, so it was a big step for us. Because
at that point, some people would you know
pack it up and say 'alright, that didn't work,
let's go get jobs', but we just decided that
that wouldn't work so we just decided to do
it on our own and see what the year brings
us.
TL: If each member of the band had to have
a descriptive title, like "the calm one" or
"the crazy one", what would each person's
title be?
RL: Gramps. Yeah, Jules is Gramps because
he has tons of ailments because he was a hockey
player in college and got tons of injuries.
Dave is definitely Switzerland because he's
neutral, very indifferent. He never has a
strong opinion either way. Matty's the Drunk
Irishman.
MM: Is that all one word? [laughs].
RL: Alright fine, Drunk.
MM: I prefer "lush" [laughs].
RL: I don't know, I'm just stubborn or
something.
MM: Rich is the Manimal.
JJ: Matty's basically the wild one. I'm
Gramps I guess, and Dave is Switzerland.
TL: The band recently wrapped up a tour with
Evanescence and is finishing out the year
with Sevendust. You guys have played with
so many great artists, but who have been your
favorite bands to share the stage with and
who would Revelation Theory like to tour with
in the future?
RL: I mean pretty much every single band
we've played with we've loved or grown to
like or you know, in some way, shape or form
has touched us in a way, whether it be their
songs, their performance, or their overall
personalities.
MM: Flyleaf.
Dave Agoglia: Flyleaf.
MM: Sevendust is always good to play with.
RL: I'd have to say, you know playing
with Sevendust-that's where our roots are
from, and having them come out ten years after
their careers have started and rock just as
hard as from the first time, then that's awesome.
JJ: One of the highlights from last year
was Staind, dude. I mean we've looked up to
Staind and I love Aaron Lewis and getting
to meet him was really cool. You know my amp
broke for one of the shows so he ended up
lending me his back-up out of the goodness
of his heart and it's just stuff like that-it's
a trip. But tours in the future? Korn, Linkin
Park. We toured with Evanescence and Staind
and those type of bands and it's cool.
MM: I like System of a Down.
DA: Yeah, System of a Down.
RL: Apparently they broke up though.
JJ: But I think Linkin Park would be a
good tour for us.
All: Yeah, agree.
RL: The sky's the limit. I'd like to do
an extensive tour with Three Days Grace because
I love their album and they're just awesome.
JJ: Yeah, we love those guys.
TL: What types of music and bands do you all
listen to in your spare time and do you try
to incorporate elements from other genres
when you write?
RL: It's a pretty wide array of music.
JJ: It's really wide. I actually listen
to a lot of chill stuff when I'm off. I'm
getting into more sort of indie stuff, but
I dig Dredg and stuff like that. Just more
kind of chill, weird stuff.
MM: 36 Crazyfists,
Bullet for My Valentine.
RL: To be honest, I really don't listen
to much music when I'm outside of this because
I listen to so much of it when I'm here so
I just let my brain rest.
DA: There's some great music out there.
TL: What was Revelation Theory's reaction
to the breakout success of your first single
"Slowburn"?
RL: It was fun to watch it on the charts,
because we didn't expect anything of it. We
were just kind of like 'alright, give them
this and see what happens'. We kept our fingers
crossed and like you know there were certain
websites to go on and track each week to see
how it's doing and it was fun to watch it
week to week and watch it climb. And again,
we weren't on a major label, we didn't have
people pulling favors for us it was purely
being played because people enjoyed us and
they know the song which is cool.
JJ: It was on the charts for so long.
RL: Yeah, like nine months.
DA: We'd be driving to a show and we'd
hear the song on the radio by chance and it's
amazing, you know like flipping out.
RL: The first time we heard the song was
in Charleston actually. 98X played it.
JJ: I remember before we had this bus
we had the truck, and we were standing outside
and heard it play and it was just awesome.
We felt like it overachieved which was awesome,
but it could have achieved more maybe. But
it we had the right people working for us
and it did more than we ever thought it would.
TL: Let's say Revelation Theory decides to
sell-out and go mainstream pop. What would
the band's new name be and who would you tour
with?
All: Dick In the Box [laughs].
JJ: We'd do Color Me Badd covers
All: [laughs]
All: Velvet DeVoe.
RL: Interesting question.
JJ: We'd tour with The Killers.
TL: Would y'all ever jump on a Beyonce or
JoJo tour or something?
All: No!
RL: Christina Aguilera wouldn't be bad.
All: She's gross!
JJ: Yeah she's gross dude.
RL: Well before she got gross then.
MM: Pussycat Dolls
JJ: But Dick In a Box [laughs].
TL: What does 2007 hold for Revelation Theory
and when should we expect to hear new material
from the band?
JJ: Hope it holds big things man. We're
hopefully gonna be pushed by a major label
come January.
RL: We'll make an announcement after the
new year who we decide to partner with for
a major label and we should have new music
out hopefully by spring, early spring of '07.
JJ: We're working hard right now. We're
technically off the road, but we had already
committed to these five shows and we wanted
to do it. We're in writing mode just gearing
up for next year so we can hit it running
as quick as possible.
TL: If you guys had to sum up the experience
of being in a hard working, touring rock band
in one word, what would it be and why?
RL: I got one-resilient, because there's
always gonna be a time, especially when you're
trying to do it on your own when every single
card is stacked up against you, and you want
to give up. But you somehow find hope in each
other or in what you're doing to help you
keep going. And that makes everything that
much better, because if it was all clear sailing,
it wouldn't be as fun as if you had to overcome
obstacles.
JJ: Gratifying man. It's awesome. It's
a great feeling getting to do this and not
having to do our day jobs anymore. Everything
we're doing is unbelievable and gratifying,
and we're not doing everything with a silver
spoon in our mouths. We're hustling, man.
We're working hard, and that's gotten a lot
of respect from people.
MM: You also learn to enjoy every moment,
whether it's good or bad, and really soak
in every experience you have and all the people
you meet. It helps you learn.
DA: Not to take anything for granted.
Everyday is something brand new, completely
different and that makes it fun as hell.
TL: That's pretty much it. Anything y'all
wanna throw out there?
All: No [laughs].
RL: Don't burn CD's.
All: Buy CD's!
JJ: Or download it on iTunes.
DA: Stay in school! Be yourself.
All: [Laughs].
