Rock My Monkey: Hello, you are listening to the Rock My Monkey netcast on RockMyMonkey.com. Today we are speaking with Nick Hipa of the band As I Lay Dying. How are you doing today, Nick?
Nick Hipa: I’m great. Thanks, man.
Rock My Monkey: Your singer recently had to flee his home twice because of the California fires. Did everything turn out okay, and does he still have a home?
Nick Hipa: Yeah. Actually, myself and Jordan, we all had to evacuate our houses as well, but luckily for us no one lost anything, no one got hurt, our places didn’t burn down. But it was quite a hectic week for us. That was the only week we were home between our Japan and Thailand tour, and the start of our U.S. headlining tour. So when we came home for that week we had to deal with that, and then we left, so it wasn’t the most relaxing thing ever.
Rock My Monkey: But everybody still has their homes?
Nick Hipa: Yeah. No one lost anything important.
Rock My Monkey: How is your new bassist, Josh Gilbert, working out, and where did he come from?
Nick Hipa: Josh came from Birmingham, Alabama, actually, and he was in a band called This Endearing. And they were actually friends-or they were managed by someone that’s friends with our band, and they were trying to get signed onto Tim’s label, High Impact, which is like a subsidiary of Metal Blade, but being that we were in the middle of our touring cycle for Shadows Are Security Tim didn’t have enough time to take on another band. After Clint had left we were looking for something new, and we were trying a bunch of guys out, and Tim had remembered that there was this dude in this one band that was really talented and that that band had broken up. So he just got a hold of Josh and kind of asked him what he was doing. And he was up to absolutely nothing. So Josh rushed to California, tried out, and did a good job. He ended up recording on our new album. He didn’t get to write with us, but he recorded with us, and he’s been playing with us live ever since. He’s working out sweet. He’s our type of dude. He’s a great guy, and he’s a talented musician, and he takes this band as seriously as we do. So it’s been working out awesome.
Rock My Monkey: So that is Josh on the cd, and not Clint, right?
Nick Hipa: Yes, that’s Josh doing all the-or the majority of the clean vocals, and playing all the bass on the songs. Tim does the clean vocals on Nothing Less in the studio, but all the rest of them are Josh.
Rock My Monkey: Was there a focused attempt to make Oceans diverse and to stand out from the concept album of Shadows?
Nick Hipa: Yeah, definitely. I would say, because we had finished Shadows, that was kind of a learning process for us, as much as it was just recording another album, because that was the first cd that we had all, I guess, worked on together. And a lot of the songs, the way they came out, we were stoked on them, but on listening to the record a year or two later, it’s like, man, it’s cool, but it kind of has a one dimensional feel. Like we do one thing and we do it pretty sweet, but we know we’re capable of so much more, and we can do a lot more. With this album when we went into writing it, we had so many different ideas and so much more time that we really got to concentrate on making it a well-rounded album that you weren’t listening to track 7 and 8 and thinking that it sounded just like track 1 and 2. So that is something that we put a conscious effort into doing, and I think it came out pretty sweet.
Rock My Monkey: I also hear that part of what made this album sound so diverse was that this was the first time there was a more equal balance of contributions from everybody else in the band.
Nick Hipa: Yeah, totally. Because Shadows and before were mostly Tim and Jordan and whoever was playing guitar at the time. Tim took a lot of the initiative to write most of the songs himself, because he didn’t really have any solid members. People were coming and going. By the time Phil and I joined, during the touring cycle for Frail Words Collapse and we started writing, Phil was a little bit more, I guess prepared with writing. I came from more of a chaotic band, and a lot of stuff I was writing wasn’t really what we were looking for with Shadows. And so Shadows Are Security is mostly, I guess the core of the songs Tim and Phil, whereas on that album I just contributed with leads and stuff. But with An Ocean Between Us we had so much more time, and we were familiar with how each other worked, that I guess we were a lot more organized and productive with the time we had in the room. I ended up writing a lot more of the record than I did on the last one. It was that way all around. We all brought ideas into the recording-into the writing process, and together I guess we refined it until we found something we all liked.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think Adam brought to the cd as a producer that would not have been there otherwise?
Nick Hipa: I can actually hear it in the first version of the album. We recorded like the pre-production version, and then Adam’s version. I think he just, he brought a higher level of performance out of all of us. There are a lot of things where I play a phrase, and he’s like ‘Oh, that was sweet,’ and Adam would ‘Nope, that wasn’t even close to good.’ I was like ‘Are you kidding me?’ And he’s just such a perfectionist and he knows how things should sound. He had a good idea of what we were going for. In the end I think he got the most out of every member of the band. And he also, he was also very good at tracking things and layering things with us. It was just a, I guess a more professional product with Adam, because he’s a genius. He’s recorded tons of sweet albums. So we learned a lot from him as a band, and as players individually.
Rock My Monkey: How did it feel to be named Artist Of The Year at the San Diego Music Awards a few months ago?
Nick Hipa: Oh, it was awesome. We were stoked. That voting is done online by fans and stuff. Even though we were up against bands like Switchfoot and Jason Mraz and whatnot, who like sold millions of records, the fact that we have more diehard fans who are willing to take the time just to vote for us means a lot. And it’s also our hometown, so it’s pretty sweet to be loved where you’re from.
Rock My Monkey: How far in advance did you know that you guys were the winners?
Nick Hipa: Actually, we didn’t really know in advance. We found out I think the day that we won the award, because we actually were on tour in Europe. And we had a friend who was there representing us, and she’s like ‘Hey, you guys won.’ And we were just like ‘Sweet. That’s awesome.’ We were somewhere in Germany, I think, receiving the news. It was really cool. We were really happy.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think the band is doing with Oceans to make sure that you are unique within the metalcore style? What do you guys do to make sure that you guys stick out so much?
Nick Hipa: I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Because we weren’t like trying to just branch off from, or just write something that no one else has done before, you know, and just I guess separate ourselves from the pack. When we went into this, we were just like, ‘Hey, let’s write the sweetest songs we can possibly write.’ And we just put a lot of thought into writing good songs rather than just throwing shred parts and mosh parts together. And I think that’s something that has kind of made the band stand out is we, I don’t know, there’s an extreme amount of thinking that goes into everything we do. And Adam D can tell you it’s kind of exhausting, because we overanalyze everything. But in the end I think it’s well thought out and focused, to where like the music in our songs is memorable and fluent, and the lyrics are, I guess, relevant to us and relevant to other people. It’s not just something that musicians or just people in general can identify with. I think with Oceans we kind of got a little bit better at writing different types of songs. And I guess just getting better at playing and everything, too. I think that’s part of the reason why it’s the best album I think we’ve done.
Rock My Monkey: The video for Nothing Left is pretty bleak and futuristic. Who came up with the concept, and how do you as the artist feel it ties into the meaning of the actual song?
Nick Hipa: Actually, I came up with the concept for that one. And to be completely honest, when I was just laying in my bunk thinking about what we could possibly do for a video, I was just listening to the song and kind of vibing out on it. And I was like, man, it would be cool if we did this, this, and this. And then I was talking it over with Tim, and Tim was like, ‘Well, you know if we kind of changed it a little and had our main character doing a little bit of this, I think it would tie in with the lyrics better.’ And so the idea is kind of like you really, I guess you really identify with who you are when you’re seriously about to die. You just come to accept yourself for everything you are, and not anything that you’re hiding. Tim had added that part in to make it more consistent with the lyrics, but we just filmed a video for “The Sound Of Truth” which conceptually is consistent with “Nothing Less”. So where the “Nothing Less” video ended, “The Sound Of Truth” video begins, and it’ll kind of bring the story to an end.
Rock My Monkey: When is the public going to be able to see that?
Nick Hipa: I think it’s going to be out in December or January. I’m not sure. We just saw the first edit for today. It’s pretty sweet, too.
Rock My Monkey: You guys also were able to hit number 8 on the Billboard charts with Oceans. Did you ever think that a band that plays this style of music would be able to have a success like that?
Nick Hipa: To be completely honest, never. I didn’t even think our band would be able to tour in a bus. The fact that I’m on my bus talking right now is pretty sweet. We were on Warped Tour when the album came out, and we found out we debuted at number 8, and I was just, calling my dad in Hawaii, just calling my family. They were pretty stoked, because no one would have expected that a band without a significant amount of radio play, and as extreme as we are, would ever accomplish something like that. I think that’s just a testament to how rad our fans are, and how we’ve kind of built up a pretty solid following from all of touring and stuff.
Rock My Monkey: What was the inspiration behind the title cut An Ocean Between Us?
Nick Hipa: What was the inspiration?
Rock My Monkey: Right. Like, what’s the meaning behind the song? What’s the message you’re trying to get across with that?
Nick Hipa: Well, I’m going to butcher this because Tim wrote the lyrics and they’re a little more personal to him, but from what I gather the whole idea is there’s a standard for the way people should live, and what happiness is, and how living your life a certain way will be fulfilling to you. And I think that’s kind of a standard that’s handed down by your parents, or maybe like your teachers or pastors, or whoever it is who influences your life. And for Tim, he, I guess he kind of feels that there’s a lot of those things aren’t really, aren’t really substantial and I guess eternal. Some of those things just don’t matter. And for what we feel is important, I guess there’s a huge separation, which is kind of the poetic ‘an ocean between us’ between what we feel is worth living for, and what other people tell us is worth living for.
Rock My Monkey: Between a hard drive crashing, Adam spilling water on a $4000 pre-amp, and everything else, what do you think is the worst thing to happen while trying to record this cd?
Nick Hipa: The first three days, the first day and a half, I’m sorry, before we recorded guitars, we were just having the hardest time to get strings, to get our guitars in tune and keeping them from buzzing. And we couldn’t figure it out. We had all of our guitars set up a week in advance, and we were ready to go. And Phil and I were already nervous to record our parts with Adam because he’s a big guitar player, but we couldn’t figure it out. And what ended up happening was we had gotten a bad batch of strings from a string company that we use, and it was just a random fluke, and it cost us a day and a half in the studio. There was something about the way they were wound that they were vibrating weird, and they weren’t holding the tuning. Even though the intonation was right, they were buzzing really bad and stuff. And that was just kind of a horrific start, kind of a nerve wracking, I guess, nerve wracking recording session.
Rock My Monkey: I hear the band is also planning a DVD in the near future. Has that been filmed, and when do you think that might be released?
Nick Hipa: Well, we have not performed a live performance yet, so we haven’t filmed that. And that’s dictating when the DVD is coming out. We wanted to do it in the middle of the touring cycle for An Ocean Between Us to make sure we were tight as a band, and that our fans were super familiar with the album, so when we do record a live DVD, it’s awesome. So that’s to be determined, I guess. But I do know that we have a ridiculous amount of footage dating all the way back to Ozzfest of 2005. The girl that’s doing our DVD has been out with us on almost every tour we’ve done since then, so we’ve got so much footage. And I think it’s just a matter of us performing and recording it professionally, and then we’ll figure it out.
Rock My Monkey: What song on this cd do you think has the chance of being your Ace Of Spades, the song fans demand for decades to come?
Nick Hipa: Hmm. You know, I’m thinking maybe “The Sound Of Truth”, if it has to be a song on this album, because that seems to be the song that a lot of, all of our fans are asking us to play, seem to be stoked on. And it’s one of our personal favorite songs. And I think it just has to do with, that’s like our most melodic and driving song on the album. I just think when we wrote that song, everything kind of fell into place. That’s hindsight, of course, because I do remember how painstaking it was when we were sitting in that practice room, but when it was finally recorded, we were like, yeah, this feels good. And like I said, we just filmed a video for it, and I think it’s going to do pretty well.
Rock My Monkey: What song on here is the most personal song on the cd for you, and why?
Nick Hipa: Hmm. The most personal song for me and why. Hmm. Well, the song Forsaken is a song that I just really identify with. We had recorded, we had recorded and written-we had recorded the pre-production version of that song, and we were writing that thing when I was going through one of the toughest times in my life, ever. I had a really close member of my family, it was my grandfather, passed away, and I had just gotten out of a really long relationship. My ex-girlfriend. All these things were happening to me right when we were writing the music for that song. So lyrically, it has, I don’t have any sort of affinity with the song because of the lyrics. It’s just, I remember writing the end part of that song, which is so intense, and that’s kind of like the most epic and powerful, one of the most epic and powerful moments in the cd for me. And it was one of those things when I was playing, I was just ‘man, this is how I feel right now.’ Every time I hear it I just think about that moment in my life.
Rock My Monkey: Is there-being a band that started from the underground, started being a band that was barely a speck on the radar to now hitting high on Billboard charts with the album release and everything else. Is there any lesson that you guys have learned that you could share with other bands that are spinning their wheels trying to make it?
Nick Hipa: The only think I can say is we’ve always been mindful of, and we still are very mindful of, is just not to take anything for granted. We’ve seen so many bands come and go, it’s just, I don’t know, you can’t really expect it to last. So you really have to just enjoy yourself at all times. We’re having just as much fun as we were four years ago touring in our van and playing to like a 100, 150 kids. You really have to love what you’re doing, and not expect, I guess not expect any sort of success or accomplishments to make you happy in a band. You really have to just love it. When things do start happening for your band, you’ll appreciate it more and you won’t, like I said, take it for granted.
Rock My Monkey: What are the plans for 2008, and will the band be getting back out on the road again after Christmas?
Nick Hipa: Yeah, 2008 we are going to be touring tons. I know January we’re going to come back to all the cities that we missed on this headlining tour. February we’re going to Australia. March I think we’re going to play a lot of Canadian shows, and then all the cities we didn’t hit on this tour or the January tour. And then we’re going to go to Europe some more, and possibly doing another summer tour.
Rock My Monkey: How do you keep up the Christian lifestyle on the road, and do any of you drink, smoke, cuss, or party it up in any way?
Nick Hipa: (laughs) Well, we all try and keep each other accountable as far as getting too out of control. All of us except for Josh drink. We don’t like go out of control raging and everything, but we’re all old enough, and I enjoy having a beer after we play and just chilling out on the bus. None of really, actually none of absolutely do any drugs or anything like that. There’s some kind of, you know, typical dude humor. I don’t think we’re any more extreme than your average person, it’s just that we kind of have morals that are a little more consistent with our beliefs, and we try not to stray away from them, ever.
Rock My Monkey: What new cd, other than your own, would you like to plug right now? What new release has really been rocking your cd player?
Nick Hipa: I’ve recently been into the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows. That album is sic. There’s also a band on Solid State Records called Oh Sleeper They just put out an album called When I Am God, and that’s one of the sweetest albums I’ve heard in ages. It’s just awesome. I suggest anyone who likes heavier, more abstract type of heavy music to I guess check that album out. I think the Between The Bury Me album, Colors is amazing, and the new Arch Enemy album is really sic, too. That’s what I’ve been listening to lately.
Rock My Monkey: So on the Radiohead, I gotta ask you, because they told people that they could name their own price and pay whatever they wanted. How much did you pay to download the new Radiohead?
Nick Hipa: I paid like four pounds and like fifty cents, so it came out to around nine or ten bucks, and I figured that was worth it, because it was a little less than a dollar a song, which is what I would pay on iTunes. I had this huge thing in my head, I’m like, ‘well, he won’t have this overhead cost, and he won’t have to do this, this, and this.’ And I was like so if I’m paying the band just for each song, like this is how much they’ll probably get from iTunes. I appreciate and respect the band, so I’m paying this much for it.
Rock My Monkey: Now is the time of the interview I call The Lightening Round. I’m going to name something in popular news or popular culture, and you sum up your thoughts in one short sentence. You ready?
Nick Hipa: Okay, yeah.
Rock My Monkey: Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Nick Hipa: I have no idea who that is.
Rock My Monkey: The NBC show Heroes.
Nick Hipa: I’ve heard great things about it, but I’m too busy with all my other tv series to actually start watching it.
Rock My Monkey: The iPhone.
Nick Hipa: Genius. If only I wasn’t on T-Mobile.
Rock My Monkey: President Bush.
Nick Hipa: He’s almost done with his term.
Rock My Monkey: Fox News.
Nick Hipa: I’m more of an MSNBC guy, myself.
Rock My Monkey: The Recording Industry Associate Of America.
Nick Hipa: I love going to their website and seeing who’s gold and platinum.
Rock My Monkey: I do have one final question. Every year we do choose one final question that we ask every single band, from classic rock legends to the most extreme death metal bands, partially to stump people but also to see who wimps out and won’t answer. This year I’m asking people to look into their crystal ball and predict what political figure, world leader, musician, celebrity, anybody world wide famous, who do you think might die before the end of the year?
Nick Hipa: Might die before the end of the year?
Rock My Monkey: Yep.
Nick Hipa: Jeez.
Rock My Monkey: Anybody world wide famous. It could be a political leader from another country, it could be a musician, it could be like a celebrity person that’s partying a little too hard in Hollywood. Maybe a friend that you’re concerned with that’s partying too hard.
Nick Hipa: This is kind of doomsaying, but maybe Fidel Castro. I hear he’s on his last leg.
Rock My Monkey: Thank you very much for doing the interview. Anybody that’s listening to the audio version can go to RockMyMonkey.com for the full featured version with clickable links, readable text and many more wonderful features. I’m asking people to click on the album cover above and below this interview to purchase An Ocean Between Us by As I Lay Dying. And I do hope to see you guys up on tour in the Northwest sometime soon. Thank you very much for your time.
