The Concert Scene: Speaking of the record, I love concept albums. How did you come up with that concept? I think it’s just fascinating. I love your album.
John Falls: I’m going to break your heart, right now. It’s not actually a concept record at all. Everything… the songs were written first. They’re all different events that actually happened to us.
TCS: Really? They seem tied together so much into this sort of overall narrative. To me, at least.
JF: Well, that was the awesome thing that kind of happened. We found…we all love movies, we all love comics, we all love all that stuff. So, we like to connect the dots. And after white rabbit was done and it was picked to be the title track, and you know, we were starting to look at artwork and stuff like that, we decided to create this character which is Fatty Arbuckle and really tell this story of this evil character. We’ve been through everything in this industry and just crazy stuff in life and we were like “This would be a fun way to connect the dots for the fans. And then it just happened to work out that because we write about things that are real life, it is a story. So that’s why if flows so well, because it’s exactly what we’ve experienced, you know from record one to record two. It’s not like, “Hey lets write a song about…frickin’ –going to a strip club.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that…I mean, I’m sure that- like, what we write about, really happened. And we told the stories and they’re all different stories. That’s what it is, is that they’re all just different chapters and it has a way to connect. Joey’s an amazing lyricist man, and I think that’s a testament to that; the fact that people can connect the dots. And we haven’t even put the comic out yet. We’re just working on it now. We’ve got some of it in the album and released some of them through like, Revolver, stuff like that. But now, it’s like; people are connecting it on their own. This is definitely…
TCS: It’s just such a cool idea. So how did your sound develop?
JF: Well Joey and Blake came from jam band style. And they had a lot of funk and a lot of groove, and a lot of different elements than what your run of the mill rock band does. So, when you start putting people with different influences and different likes and you know, one guy sees the band being like this and another guy sees the band being like that, most of the time they can’t coexist. And in this scenario everybody just kind of got in there and did that. Does their thing to and puts it all in one pot and thank God it doesn’t taste like shit, when it’s done. Because there’s definitely a recipe for disaster when you do that. And I would say with the new record, the sound just- I think there was a much clearer angle of who we are, what we do live, and capturing that along with the songwriting ability of the band. You know, all in one, with Joey always writing and Blake between the first record and the second really started to become a songwriter and a producer and Jeff’s always been able to play anything on a freaking guitar- it makes me want to throw up. And, you know, it’s just like, everyone grew naturally. I mean, you stick to your craft. It’s just like any other job. I mean if you’re a mechanic and you just start changing oil everyday and you don’t do the rest of it, you’ll start to slouch. Your knowledge will start to deplete and you won’t be as good at certain stuff as you were. But if you stay active in every aspect of being a mechanic you’re going to be like the world’s best mechanic after a while. And we always look at it like that. We strive to be the best. And we truly believe that we can make changes to music, make changes to people’s lives and bring something that actually has substance back to music.
TCS: So with you personally, you said you started out making a career change, but how was music involved in your life before that?
JF: Music was always an escape for me, since I was a kid. I grew up in state’s custody like, state’s home. I tried foster care for a while but I was like, “No-this isn’t going to work,” so I would do stupid stuff like try to burn the house down or something like that. Don’t recommend that. No, I didn’t actually go that far. But I just didn’t want to be there and removed me fairly quickly and put me back into different places. Different institutions and stuff like that. Anywhere they can put you, wilderness camps…I just bounced around a lot. Music was just always kind of like a way to get away from what the reality of my life was as a kid. Being an abused child and things like that. And I just always found solace in good music. Things that make you feel stuff. I didn’t go, “there’s this style that I like,” I mean, I might go from a country song to an old R&B song to a metal song to singer/songwriter stuff. It didn’t really matter, I mean, I just like really good music and I think that that’s the disconnect to with some people who are just like “It’s gotta be this way, it’s gotta be that way. This is all I’ll listen to.” And it’s like, “You’re such a close minded idiot you don’t realize that there’s so much music out there.” And music is supposed to make you feel something. It’s supposed to change the way that you feel when you hear it or it’s supposed to intensify the emotion that you experiencing to being with. It’s part of our soul. It’s got so many different angles and branches to it that can do different things for you. And I think for me it helped me get through a lot as a kid and then as I got older, you know I always loved to sing, like driving in my car, you know I would just jam out and stuff. And then, you know, I was always hearing the new stuff that was coming out because I ran clubs. Different ones, I mean, I ran nightclubs, restaurants, strip clubs. I was just in the bar and the food industry for a long time so I got exposed to a lot of stuff that I might not normally listen to on a day-to-day basis if you were just in control of your own ipod. Some things I wish I wasn’t exposed to, but it really became unbelievably special to me when we started this band. To be able to be with the guys that I’m in the band with and all be brothers and all be doing this together for such a long time…they influenced me so much. I mean, I was like “I’m not listening to that, that’s junk.” I was so close minded, still myself even. That’s why I can call you an idiot for being close-minded, because I was an idiot myself. And then I realized that, that’s part of what’s awesome about it, is that there really is no barriers. You can do whatever you want to with music. It’s a freedom, it’s an outlet to release any emotion that you’re having and I know that not everybody has the ability to sit down and write a song and get what’s on their chest off or sometimes they just can’t find the words to put pen to paper and get it all out and I think that’s one of the other elements of Egypt Central, is that- we’ll be your voice, we’ll say what you need to say. We’re going to take every negative thing that we can find in our lives and we’re going to put a positive spin on it and we’re going to do that for you because you might not be able to do that for yourself.
TCS: What do you see, exactly, your message as being?
JF: Just that… the example that I like to use is that life’s like a people mover at the airport. But you’re on the wrong side, so it’s always moving backwards. So, when you’re at a dead sprint, you’re making small movement forward in life. And that’s life. It comes in small increments and you have to move forward. You have to keep a positive attitude no matter what life throws at you because life throws shitty stuff at everyone. It doesn’t do anyone any favors; you have to do it yourself. You can’t think that the issues that you’re going through hold different weight or are at a higher magnitude than the person next to you because you never know what the person next to you is going through or what they’ve been through. I know, being a kid, I have people come up all the time talking about my childhood to me and they’re like, “I’m so sorry about what happened to you, you know, it’s so awesome that you’re doing this” and I’m like “Don’t ever feel sorry for me, I love the life that I had.” I feel sorry for the kid who had parents that were married and then in the middle of high school found out that Mommy’s got a boyfriend and Daddy’s got three kids over here across town. I never had anything to loose so I mean, I’m doing pretty good considering where I cam from. I mean, I’m not dead so that’s an instant win for me. But that’s the attitude that you have to have, it’s that life’s gonna throw you curveballs and it’s gonna rain on your parade and there’s nothing that you can do about it except find something to learn from within that. And you can find something positive, even if it’s just learning that that sucks. Even if that’s all you can take away from it, it still is something that can be learned from it. And then you just keep moving, because the second that you stand still in life, that people mover- you think that you’re just standing there taking a deep breath and a pause to collect yourself. The problem is that the whole time that’s happening life’s sucking you backwards. The whole time you’re moving backwards and you gotta just put your head down and keep moving forward and not let life control you. You make your own decisions and your own choices, no matter how bad it is. And if you can’t find a way then we definitely are the band for you. Come to a show, hang out, wait for the show to be over, walk up to our merch table- we stay there until everybody leaves and we’ll gladly talk to you about whatever’s going on in your life.
TCS: Cool, thank you.
JF: Thank you.
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