GW: Stone told me that getting Jack Irons in as your drummer may
have saved the band. Other than being a great player, how has he
helped you all grow?
McCREADY: He's been a big influence in terms of opening up our
communications with each other. He's a big spiritual influence, if not
the biggest. He and Ed, for sure. If there are problems or whatever he's
not afraid to call them out. If the rest of us start to skirt over certain
issues, Jack will always raise a red flag and then we'll sit down and deal
with it. He'll just cut through and go, "Hey, something's wrong here and
this is how I feel about it-let's discuss it." It's made us 100 percent closer
than we were before.
GW: Are you guys more comfortable now that the limelight is finally on
someone else?
McCREADY: Totally! It's very much a sense of relief. We can focus
more on the music and live our lives rather than deal with the hype
and get caught up in Ticketmaster bullshit. We're focusing more on
the music.
GW: So is the Ticketmaster battle something you're still involved in,
but not obsessing about?
McCREADY: Not obsessing, but we're still a little bit concerned
about it. We might actually do some shows with them in certain
cities, because you can't really deal without them in places like
Chicago and Philadelphia.
GW: On the last tour, there were those who felt you were taking
things too far, even though you had the best intentions. But many
people felt you were rigidly self righteous and insensitive to use
alternative venues that couldn't handle the volume. A lot of people
couldn't get tickets and a few I know were actually physically hurt.
Did you eventually realize it was counterproductive?
McCREADY: We definitely lost some people because of that. I'm
sure there are fans who would have preferred to pay the ticket
price-I've actually had people tell me that-instead of having to go
through alternative routes. Maybe we took that a little far, I agree.
I guess it was the only way we knew how to do it at the time. That
probably turned off a lot of people, which is unfortunate. As I say,
we're not going to push so hard about it this time, and may even
use Ticketmaster in certain cities where you can't find anywhere
else to play.
GW: Jeff, do you agree with Mike that all of you feel more centered
now-about outside pressures as well as your band relationships?
AMENT: I think as you get older and more aware, you just can't
sustain that kind of tension that we carried around. You get to a
point where you have to learn to deal with that energy and let it
be transformed and pass through in a new way. For us, over the
last few years, that's meant working on new perspectives by stepping
out of that hurricane and not touring so much or doing interviews.
When we get into a room to work at creating a song, all that other
stuff we were talking about-Ticketmaster and battles with certain
magazines-it all seems so unimportant. Some of the people we were
fighting thought they were bigger than the music. And none of us are.
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